Business & Management Studies

Abstract

This study focuses on the determinants of access to finance by SMEs in the city of Goma. With regard to theoretical and empirical reflections on the issue of credit rationing, this study explores a dual approach centered respectively on the theory of informational asymmetry and the governance theory.

Based specifically on a quantitative approach, the results of the surveys of 271 SMEs, using logistic regression, have clearly demonstrated that access to finance, in the context of highly imperfect markets such as that of the city of Goma, depends largely on the following variables: collaterals, solvency, nondefault, duration of existence and social capital, with reference to the preponderance of their odds ratios. Specifically, for collateral, it reduces distortions arising from information asymmetry while discouraging opportunistic behavior by SME owners. Analysis provided additional results according to which the holding of an additional income-generating activity as well as the interpersonal relations of the SME owner with the MFIs increase the probability of access to financing.